Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Pride & Commitment ( Chapter 20 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Pride & Commitment

So… Yeah. I don't own anything… have I actually every put a disclaimer up for this? Shit, I think I kept forgetting…

June 24th 197 - Saturday - Brussels

“It's all so fast,” Relena muttered worriedly, picking at her papers.

“You say it like it's a bad thing,” Jake returned bemusedly, crossing his arms.

“It's not normal,” she protested, not looking up.

“You're not normal.” She rolled her eyes and turned to give him a look, and he only smiled back sweetly.

They had slowly been becoming better friends since they had met, even while he had gone into retraining… and she certainly had to admit that he looked good in an official uniform instead of his old jeans and t-shirt. He had officially been declared fit for duty yesterday… which was then that she found out that the post he had been “getting back in shape for” was her bodyguard.

If she had been shy about him before, she was outright abashed now.

“What?”

When she had asked Milliardo about it, her brother had admitted that Jake was one of the few people he trusted whole-heartedly enough to allow him to escort his sister anywhere… and he really did mean anywhere. The men had trained together, and while Jake had mentioned it more in passing than anything, Milliardo had made it clear that while he had gone into mobile suits, Jacob Miller had become deeply involved in more… direct… forms of fighting. There was more to it than that, but she hadn't tried to pry.

He had also admitted that Jake had asked for this particular assignment.

“Why did you want to guard me?” she asked bluntly. She had tried thinking of a better way to go about it, but nothing else seemed like it might work better.

He blinked at her. “You're going to be changing everything, you realize? You're important.”

“That's not an answer,” she returned coolly, turning back to her work to hide a rising blush.

“Ah… I care?” he suggested, though his tone was as though he was grabbing at possible answers that might appease her. “I trust me,” he added a bit more solidly. “I thought you wanted to go down to the people's level and actually get your hands dirty. I know I can handle myself well enough that we can keep that at a minimum guard, if I'm in charge.”

“What about your old work?” Her cheeks were getting hotter, instead of calming…

He seemed to sense there was more of an issue here. He was quiet for a while… but after a minute, he softly said, “Relena, I really wasn't doing much of anything.” His hand touched her shoulder and she jumped slightly. When did he come so close? “Do you really not want me to guard you?”

Her face was going numb. “I just don't understand why you would want to,” she whispered, closing her eyes. Why was this so hard? Why was it that he set her into such a damn fluster all the time?

…And that was really the core of the problem. She had gotten to the point where she could admit to the little crush she had on the soldier… and he really didn't need to know about it. It was silly and she knew it, just something to laugh over…

She really didn't want him to think less of her for having such an inappropriate reaction to him. Especially after her brother had begun to suggest that Jake would make a better guard than himself, she had such a respect for him… and she really didn't want him to lose his respect for her.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered in that same soft voice. “I suppose I should have asked. We just seemed to get along well enough, so I assumed…”

She took a deep breath. “It's not that. I just don't see why you're so interested.”

He seemed to pause at that; his grip on her shoulders seemed more hesitant, anyway. When he spoke again, his voice held a twinge of confusion, disbelief. “How could I not be?”

When she didn't immediately respond, he stepped away from her, then to the side, so he could see her face. “Relena, I've been helping you organize any of this… Did you think I was just bullshitting you or something?” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I wasn't. You have good ideas… I want to see them happen. I want to make sure they happen, so I want to keep you safe. I can still crunch numbers for you if you don't want to let the cat out of the bag until you've got a plan, I can run ideas and scenarios…” He held his arms out wide. “I know everyone, I have strings I can pull if you ever want something done quickly…” He made a slight face. “And not to be offensive, but I'm more reliable than Dorothy.”

“I don't doubt any of that,” she told him fiercely, angry with herself; this was not how this conversation was supposed to be going. She was about to start crying.

“Then don't doubt me,” he returned in that soft, soothing voice again, stepping forward and taking her hands. “I'm here to help… I wouldn't be if I didn't want to be. If it makes you feel better this isn't the first time I've committed to a project that's this big… I know what I'm diving into.” He sighed. “But in all honesty, you need to calm down and figure out how to handle this because I am not going to be the last person to stand behind you and your goals.”

She couldn't help but chuckle a little at that, then a little more as he wiped away the tear that had started rolling down one cheek. “I must seem really silly now,” she muttered, pulling her hands away to wipe at her face. At least the door is shut.

“Not at all.” His usual grin was back… and somehow, it reminded her of Duo. He tapped her on the nose gently. “If you didn't do something like this once in a while I'd start worrying that an actual meltdown was in the making. Just don't do it too often or it'll stop mattering so much and you'll turn into Catalonia.” She started laughing a bit more, so he added, “Eyebrows and all.”

“There's nothing wrong with the eyebrows,” she tried to insist, as she always did, but it came out a bit more giggly than she'd meant it to.

“Nothing at all,” he agreed, still grinning. “Come on, I was a Special, Treize was my god for however many years.”

Managing to turn a laugh into more of a scoff, she retorted, “Yes, I'm sure he was.”

“You don't believe me? You need to hear a prayer?”

She snickered harder; for all his professing at being better than Dorothy, he certainly had a similar sense of humor.

“Alright, fine. Dear Excellency on high, I-”

She doubled over laughing outright. It seemed that maybe life would be more jovial with the man in constant company, at any rate. And it might do wonders for learning to keep a straight face.

***

Minsk, Belarus

“Stay to ground,” Adam muttered as he shouldered his pack. “Use the route I gave you, it should keep you off Treize's radar… And if you value your life, don't do anything stupid.”

“Thank-you, mother,” the other man sneered. “Do you need to check my bag to make sure I packed underwear?”

Adam smirked a little at that, and held out his hand to shake; this was farewell, after all.

Chang looked annoyed, but he took the hand, just as Adam had known he would. After all, he had proven himself a worthy ally, and for all of their warring with words over the past several weeks, there was a mutual respect. “Where are you going?” he asked after a moment.

The other considered whether or not he wanted to answer. On some level his friend deserved an answer, considering the fact that he'd offered to take him as far as Warsaw and this was Minsk; we weren't even in Poland.

The problem with keeping a finger in everything instead of committing wholeheartedly to an organization, Adam mused, was that there was only one of him to keep control on all the situations. The Barton family issues seemed more imminent than any danger that might come to his friend, so he needed to attend to that… hopefully the man had learned something in the past few weeks. His pride wouldn't count for much if he was dead.

While he likely owed Chang something for running like this when he had promised to travel to a certain point of safety, Po hardly needed to know that he planned anything with the child that had been selected to rule Earth, had Operation Meteor gone as planned. “Worry about where you're going,” he suggested instead, smiling pleasantly at Chang's annoyed look. “I may have helped you, but my business is hardly yours.”

“Tch.” His scowl certainly hadn't changed any. “I'll see you again sometime, though?”

“Provided you don't get yourself killed,” he returned easily, though he was momentarily surprised by another glare; that phrase really hadn't been engineered to make him more upset. Of course it would, though, with that pride, Adam reminded himself absently, somewhat amused by the self-righteous anger in any case. It was simple logic, really… but he would admit that the wording hadn't been thought out.

Enough was enough though; there was a reason he was leaving so suddenly. He twitched his hand in a farewell and moved away, disappearing down the alley into a different one, then into a street… making sure he was quickly lost in the crowd.

Time to do something a little more dangerous.

***

Babruysk, Belarus

Heero frowned, considering.

Moscow.

They had been seen by one of Treize's men, and the conductor had remembered them. It was confirmed, but his mark was heading home, someone else was going to replace him as some of his mark's men followed up to Moscow until they could be replaced again. They were worried that Chang was intending to get lost in the homeless crowds up there…

Moscow?

There couldn't be a safe house in Moscow… Po might have people up there, but it would be too costly to keep a safe house there. Then again, Treize didn't know that Wufei was headed for a safe house specifically, just that he was running from them…

He would be stranded in Moscow…

The logical conclusion was that he wasn't in Moscow… which suggested it was time to stop letting someone else do his work for him, if they believed that that was the case.

He and his friend had last been seen getting on the train in Minsk; would he move south again, or north? He might take the train west… But he still needed to stay in big towns, and he couldn't think that the Moscow trail would stay hot for too long, so he would want to move fast while he had the advantage. He and his companion, whoever it was, must have been sighted on purpose; they had been too careful for that big of a slip, in Heero's opinion. He would never have done it; he wasn't sure why Treize thought a gundam pilot might make such an err, but that was hardly his problem.

They had evaded the net enough that they had to have realized the searchers were spread out with someone near the center getting reports and sending orders. So maybe they would wait to move until they were sure the Moscow trail had been taken? It would make sense to stay in Minsk for at least a couple days, it was a big city, and easy to hide in. They could recuperate for a few days then set out fresh in some non-eastern direction.

It was what he would do, anyhow.

It had already been two days… they would definitely be gone by tomorrow afternoon, but he had bought a train ticket to Minsk earlier, when he thought his mark was heading there next. It left in just under fifteen minutes… he'd be there before nightfall. Even if they had already left before he found where they had stayed, the trail ought to be fresh enough that he could follow and finally catch up within a week.

He smiled a little to himself as he settled into his seat, pulling his bad leg up to his chest so he could work on the muscles in it. Dr. Srona had worried that he would be able to ever run again… but he had managed a brisk jog today. It had worn him out, to be sure, but it hadn't hurt within the range that he would worry about more damage. He didn't want to try sprinting yet, but he figured that was probably capable of it, if the need arose.

He would probably never have his old endurance… but he bet that he would be just as fast as he had been during the war before next spring, if not this winter. Even if he had completely lost the trail on Wufei… it was okay, with that reassurance. He would be himself again… and he would be able to do anything again.

***

June 25th 197 - Sunday - L3-X18999

I fought to not breathe hard, not to let the sudden fear and uncertainty I felt show. This was merely a curiosity, another excitement…

But there were so many of them.

Grandfather spoke half apologetically about the number, about how it was only a fraction of what the Peacecraft Regime could produce… and I felt a shiver run down my spine at his tone.

These men standing at attention in perfect formation… the uniform helped the image, but they weren't toys. My thumb brushed against the stiff fabric of my shorts and butterfly set loose through my stomach. I'm wearing the same thing…

“Mariemaia?”

“They'll do,” I returned cordially, moving forward as if to focus on them more. The two of us stood up on a balcony of sorts overlooking the troops… the people… I draped a hand over the railing as Grandfather moved up behind me. “How many did you say, again?” Do I look like them right now…? I resisted the urge to touch my cape to reassure myself; it was such a little difference…

He continued to talk about them as if they were my latest bauble, and I responded as it seemed appropriate. I didn't like his voice… he was patronizing me. I really wasn't stupid… but he would be upset if I didn't see things his way. That much was evident from his reaction when soldiers brought news he wasn't particularly fond of.

I didn't think I could stand it if he spoke like that to me… because then this dream would end, and everything mother had always said would be true. I ought to have refused to come, made a huge fuss, purposely made myself look so childish as to be absolutely impossible to handle without Meagan. The blow to my pride would have hurt, but this man might have lost interest in me.

I wanted to make him happy… But I also didn't want to be miserable. What was it Mr. Beiber had liked to say? That all it took for evil to prevail was for good people to not do anything? My social science teacher had usually then started to talk about Treize Khushrenada stepping up in the middle of corruption to make a possible way to topple the Romefeller Foundation, and about how true to character it was that he had risen to defend Earth when White Fang threatened it. He liked to talk about how unfortunate it was that usually the best heroes of an age died defending their ideals…

…I seriously doubted my grandfather was willing to die for anything. While of course that didn't automatically label him as evil, it seemed that all these men had that kind of commitment in them… and didn't we owe it back? Wasn't that why Treize Khushrenada had led his men into battle?

My heart started to race. I didn't want to die for anyone. It didn't matter if that was cowardly… I didn't care enough about this to lead it. Crap, I'm not even twelve, what am I supposed to be able to do? My stomach lurched. I didn't know half of what was going on and I knew it… Grandfather knew it. It was the same way I still couldn't remember what his first name was and he had never asked if I preferred to be called Marie…

Grandfather wasn't committed to any of this…

…not even me.

I clenched my teeth together; I was going to throw up, I knew it. More than anything I missed the household who all cared for me whenever I felt badly… I wanted my mother like when she used to stay at the manor in the summertime and we'd play together, where she would sit and read to me up in the atrium while I worked on the latch hook rug Meagan had gotten for me. I wanted to sit next to her on the couch as she told me funny stories, or even just at the phone while she explained politics so I could understand, like she had almost every night during the war.

“Grandfather?” I whispered, hope half caught in my throat. “I feel ill.”

“Ah, well, we'll retire, then,” he told me genially, waving down at the crowd and tapping my shoulder blade so I did the same before sweeping around and heading for the exit. I managed to make it into the connecting hall before I lost my control, falling to my hands and knees to heave… but at least all those poor men didn't see it. There was all of my breakfast…

“Are you alright?” he seemed more… curious… than he ought to be.

“Just anxiety, I think,” I mumbled. “They were all looking at me…” In truth I had never had any form of stage fright, Meagan would have called me a liar right to my face… but then, I wouldn't have tried that one on Meagan. I would not have had to.

“Ah, natural enough.” He motioned at our accompanying guard. “Get this cleaned up. Mariemaia? Perhaps you would like to return to your room, clean up a little?”

“I need to brush my teeth,” I agreed shakily, standing up and grimacing at the mess. “And change my shirt.”

“Of course. When you finish, I'm sure you will be able to find me.” And with that he simply… left. Meagan would have followed me or at least made a note of finding something I might stomach better to replace the food I had just lost; she would never let me go hungry, whether I wanted to or not. I almost missed the regime of vitamins she had shoved at me every morning for as long as I could remember.

I apologized to the men summoning a maid and they seemed friendly enough, one of them offering to escort me to my room. I almost refused, but seeing the glint of actual concern in his eyes I changed my mind, thanking him instead.

“It's alright,” he soothed as we walked. “It's a common enough reaction. I think even your father had a fear of crowds. He almost always had someone else speaking for him, or he did his speeches through a vid screen. I could be wrong, but that is one theory, at least.”

My father? It took everything I had to not stop dead in my tracks and stare at the soldier. This man had known my father. Some part of me wanted to jump on him and demand he tell me what it was he knew, to speak so familiarly… But another sick twist of logic stopped me. Grandfather would not be so careless as to put a man near me that would speak so casually of a man he abhorred. This also was not secretive information, however, which meant that Grandfather knew… and had decided not to tell me. If I made a fuss here, he would hear about it…

Though he had at least confirmed one thing; when he spoke of my father, he had used the past tense.

“Ah, yes. I suppose he might have,” I agreed solemnly as we arrived at my suite. “Thank-you.” I wanted to go throw up again.

***

Unknown

Cathy,

I'm doing well enough; I hope you are as well. I might visit soon… I'm not sure yet. If I do, I'll probably bring someone with me, so don't be too surprised (not that you ever were, from what I can remember). I'll write you again soon, and it's not a sure thing that I'm coming at all, so don't try waiting up for me.

Hope to see you soon.

Catherine smiled at the cryptic e-mail, shaking her head. Her little brother's e-mails were always so sparse that one might wander what was the point behind even sending or receiving them, but the effort to keep in touch was enough. He did come home from time to time too, though he didn't stay long… he was too worried that someone might recognize him, for all that that seemed doubtful. There hadn't been too many mainstream pictures about of Trowa, and he didn't look much like them anymore in any case, but his continued amnesia made him worry about who he met.

Instead of worrying she went back to picking up her trailer, idly playing with idea of what the boy might have meant. He was going to bring someone… a girlfriend that she could hassle, perhaps? She smiled at that; however entertaining, however, it was highly unlikely. Not impossible, considering the personality her brother had been cultivating since Libra, but very doubtful just the same.

She frowned; it might be someone that she would recognize, from his comment about when he had brought people home before… Or it might be someone he was curious to know if he ought to recognize. His memories usually came back to some extent when he found a physical manifestation of something he'd forgotten, but not always.

It was no use worrying about it, though. He'd show up eventually and he'd talk to her… he talked more in person, now. She'd find out what it was he'd been up to the past few months… and that was enough to look forward to. The good thing about the amnesia was that he seemed to have forgotten that part of himself that made him almost eager to die. He was cautious now… and the idea of leaving her alone was entirely foreign. He sent his notes because he knew it kept her from worrying as much, and that was important not because she'd slap him but just because she would worry.

Things were far from perfect right now… but she thought that she liked this civil unrest more than the war, even if it was worse in a lot of ways.

***

Amsterdam

“Another car?”

Melissa laughed at his dismayed look, leaning against the hood and smiling beatifically at him. “Cars are hot,” she confided.

Chaos grinned at that, shaking his head. He had always had pride in his gundam… but that had more been in line with its capabilities, not with how it looked, like `Liss was implying. Well, unless you were talking about the stealth ability, but that was more not seeing it than anything.

“They are, and I'll prove it,” she protesting, grinning as she shimmied up onto the hood and posed like it was a bad car commercial. Obviously just barely containing laughter, she asked, “Better?”

He crossed his arms and made a show of considering. “You know, you might be on to something…”

She shook her head in amusement and slid back off, opening the driver's side door to pop the hood. “This is honestly just maintenance… her husband died in the wars, and we're the cheapest for getting the oil changed.”

He grimaced a little, shoving the question of which faction the man had belonged to to the back of his mind. It was better not to think about that…

“But once again it's different from what you're used to with suits, so you'd probably do better to just watch so you can do it next time,” she explained as she worked her way back around to the front of the vehicle.

“It's probably just a lot less complicated, you're dealing with less G's on the system,” he muttered as he moved after her.

It did mildly confuse him, but it was on the level that he could have worked it out on his own given a half hour or so to consider the system. Melissa had obviously done it before, though, and more than a few times. There was a distinct sort of finesse she had when working with cars that he knew he had with suits… and that was comforting, in some way. She was confident… but not in the half obnoxious, `oh my God you're going to get yourself killed' way that Hilde had always been…

“What are you staring at?”

And she was suddenly right there… inches away… Though to be perfectly honest, they had been inches away from each other for the past half hour. But she had that half naughty but still sweet little smile of hers, which made it different…

…Yet backing away was a lot harder than it ought to be.

He licked his lips, trying to think as she tilted her head slightly in that curious way of hers. Her lips looked soft…

When did I start thinking about her like this? Longer than two seconds ago, he was sure… and yet…

He leaned down and met her lips with his, ignoring what repercussions that might come from this… and she was kissing him back, wrapping her hands into the front of his shirt. They shifted so she was sitting on the front of the car… the hood was still up, but she was short enough that she wouldn't hit her head on it. His hands were around her waist… and he had always known she was small, but she just seemed so tiny in his arms like this. She was hardly a delicate creature, but Hilde hadn't been either. She smelled different… more of a gentle spice than like water…

He tucked my head down on her shoulder, practically gasping… her hair tickled his nose. Was this a mistake? His whole body over was just tingling, and he trusted Melissa, but he'd just done this…

“God, Kay,” she breathed, nuzzling at his neck … and taking a deep breath, just as he was, he realized. “I've been waiting for you to do that for months…”

He laughed a little in disbelief. That was just weird… he didn't wait for practically anything. Or maybe I do… He had waited for Karina to make a choice about Luc or Cal, even if he'd prompted her to decide in the end… He was waiting for someone else to take care of what all was happening in the world. But at the same time, he had thought it would be years before he'd calm down enough to get a real job… and he had two now. Is anything ever going to come out like I plan it? He been fairly sure he was going to have to kill Cal… That he wasn't going to get into a relationship anytime soon…

…Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. He had more faith in God than he had in the past… for once, everything was going okay… And maybe it not being what he planned was just the way of things. He smiled as he kissed `Liss again, then pulled away… and she made a protesting sort of noise when he did it. “I don't really want to be caught by the woman who hired us,” he noted quietly.

She flushed bright red at that and quickly hopped up, running her hands over herself as if to straighten up, only she didn't look any more disheveled than she had before… and set to fiddling under the hood.

He smirked and went to pick up the tools they had used. He had settled more than he would have thought wise, before… He'd done what he once told the Father he was scared to do, because it might endanger someone. But he was buried deep enough that it didn't seem to matter anymore… and maybe he did deserve to be happy.

Okay, sorry that this took as long as it did, but I'm going to try to stick at least roughly to the two weeks or less update schedule. As usual, any comments or theories are much appreciated… I love to hear about what your favorite part was. Of course, also if you think there's something to improve (even if you only catch the typos… I don't keep a beta, so sorry about that) feel free to say as much.

Until next time, I guess. I have a friend who's working up pictures of the boys as they would be in this story, so some point soon maybe I'll be able to give you a link to some of those. I'm intrigued by the idea, I dunno if you lot are, but it'll be there all the same.